After months of anxiety for parents and teachers, the release of a list of 53 public schools Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration plans to close ignited a fresh round of questions and protest as communities struggle to deal with the largest schools shake-up in city history.

The Chicago Teachers Union, which went on strike for seven days in September, plans to rally at the Daley Center Wednesday and has been preparing parents and community groups for weeks for civil disobedience acts like sit-ins.

Opponents of the district's plan have hung "No School Closings" and "School Closings = One-Term Mayor" banners in the Loop. They have gathered outside schools slated to be closed to voice their displeasure with the district's decisions. While parents and students worry about moving to a new school in September, teachers and other workers at schools slated to be closed wonder if they'll be able to find another job.

More than 1,100 teachers work in the schools that could be closed. CPS says many will move to schools receiving displaced students. Under the union contract, veteran teachers with high performance ratings will get a job at a receiving school if there's a need. Principals and other school leaders would be retained through Oct. 31 to help with the transition, officials said.

The district needs to hold three meetings for each of the schools scheduled to close, two in each community and one at CPS headquarters. The school board is expected to vote on the plan in late May.

CPS officials say closing schools is necessary to address a projected $1 billion deficit. But the upfront costs, $233 million, mean the district will need to issue $155 million in bonds for capital improvements at schools taking in displaced students. But CPS expects to save $43 million annually in operating costs, starting next year and to save more than $560 million in capital costs over 10 years.

A big uncertainty is what will become of the 61 school buildings that will be closed. Many of those schools are in neighborhoods already filled with abandoned buildings.

Emily Dowdall, a senior researcher who has studied large-scale school closings for Pew Charitable Trusts, said school districts need to unload unused buildings quickly to make significant money.

"It can be difficult to find new uses for a large number of buildings, particularly older ones or those not in good condition, or those in neighborhoods that don't have a demand for real estate," Dowdall said. "What we found was that districts that move aggressively to sell or lease facilities soon after they're closed, they do better. The longer these buildings sit empty, the harder they will be to sell."

District officials have been making the case for school closings since October. Hearings overseen by a school closings commission and the district were attended by more than 20,000 people. In the past week, schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett has done a blitz of TV interviews, mounting a charm offensive with promises of air conditioning, libraries, science labs and even iPads at schools taking in displaced students.

Terry Mazany, CEO of the Chicago Community Trust and a former interim schools chief, said the ongoing fight against the district's decision will make it harder to carry out the school closings plan.

"As difficult and disruptive as these large-scale school closings will be, I am equally concerned with the negative repercussions this uncompromising opposition will have on children and families," Mazany said.

But as parents, students and teachers learned the fate of their schools last week, there was mostly anger, sadness and fear about what's to come.

Bitter rivals

Laura Ward Elementary and Ryerson Elementary sit less than a half-mile apart, just north of Garfield Park, but the two schools are bitter rivals, teachers and parents said.

Now they are set to merge. The Ward building will close and students and faculty from Ward will move into the Ryerson building at 646 N. Lawndale Ave. The building will take the name of Ward, the better performing school, and Ryerson students will be welcomed back to their building by Ward faculty and staff.

Parents and teachers questioned the wisdom of the plan, which would require the students to sit side-by-side in a building that would be viewed as enemy territory by some and occupied territory by others.

"That school and this school, they've been fighting for years," said Anntoinette Ellis, 35, who has four children at Ward.

Katina Makris, 29, a Ryerson teacher, said the rivalry was the first thing her fourth-grade students mentioned when they heard about the plan.

"They said, 'Ward, they do not like us,'" Makris recalled. Older students were even more concerned, she said.

Since the districtwide school closing plan could send students into unfamiliar territory and, in some areas, force them to cross gang lines, CPS has pledged extra funding for the Safe Passage program that positions adults along routes that students take to and from school.